Background
He was born on May 1, 1792 in Boxford, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Tyler and Abigail (Johnson) Porter, and was a descendant of John Porter who emigrated from England about 1635 and settled in Hingham, Massachussets.
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He was born on May 1, 1792 in Boxford, Massachussets, United States. He was the son of Tyler and Abigail (Johnson) Porter, and was a descendant of John Porter who emigrated from England about 1635 and settled in Hingham, Massachussets.
Other than learning to read and write, he had but six months' schooling in the Fryeburg Academy, Fryeburg, Maine, when twelve years old. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, but he was not interested in this work.
He went to Portland, Maine, where for three years he occupied his time playing the fife for military companies and the violin for dancing parties. In 1810 he apprenticed himself to a house painter and soon became accomplished both in house and sign painting.
With the outbreak of the War of 1812 he was occupied painting gunboats, and in playing the fife in the Portland Light Infantry. He moved to Denmark, Maine, in 1813, where he painted sleighs, played the drum, and taught that art. The following year he enrolled in the militia but after a few months of active service he began his wanderings from place to place, taught school at Baldwin, and at Waterford, Maine, made wind-driven gristmills at Portland, and painted in Boston, in New York, in Baltimore, Maryland, and in Alexandria, Virginia.
In 1820 at Alexandria he invented and made a camera obscura, with which he could make rather good portraits in fifteen minutes. He then secured a hand cart and again took the road, traveling northward through Virginia, painting portraits from village to village, and at odd times inventing mechanisms of various sorts. At one time he devised a revolving almanac, stopping for a moment to make and introduce it, but the process was managed poorly and without success.
He appeared in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1823, with a project to make a twin boat to be propelled by horse power, but nothing came of this idea and he again took to the road with his camera. The following year he added the painting of mural landscapes for dwellings and public buildings to his repertory and, traveling about as before, made a considerable sum of money. In 1825 at Billerica, Massachussets, he invented a successful cord-making machine but Porter's total lack of business sense caused the enterprise to fail.
While in New York he was offered an interest in a newspaper and at once decided to become an editor. He made it a scientific newspaper, the first of its kind in the country, and gave it the name, American Mechanic. The undertaking prospered and the office was moved to Boston, but in a few months Porter's attention was diverted to something else, and publication ceased. During the next three years he learned electro-plating, joined the Millerites, and invented a revolving rifle which he sold to Samuel Colt for one hundred dollars. In 1845 Porter was back in New York, working as an electro-plater.
He began a new newspaper which he called the Scientific American, the first number bearing the date August 28, 1845. The prospectus indicates that the Scientific American of today follows substantially the plan outlined by him. Within six months, however, he sold the publication to Orson Desaix Munn and Alfred Ely Beach. In 1849 he published a book entitled Aerial Navigation . New York & California in Three Days.
The latter half of his life was practically a repetition of the first. He finally settled down in Bristol, Connecticut, and died in his ninety-third year while visiting his son in New Haven.
Rufus Porter was a prolific inventor. He built a portable camera obscura that let him make silhouette portraits in less than 15 minutes. His others inventions included a clock, a steam carriage, a corn sheller, a fire alarm, and a washing machine. None of his inventions was ever patented and as soon as an idea was developed he would sell the invention for a small sum. Porter was also the founder of Scientific American magazine.
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It is also noteworthy that Rufus was a firm believing Christian.
He lacked business sense.
It is not known to whom he was married.
